


Under the Table

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Multi, mostly quite silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 18:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19091041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Gabriel is in the market for some advice, and there's really only one angel who can give it. In order to ask, he's going to have to overlook some things.Aziraphale, the one angel in question, is not nearly so interested in overlooking them, and would really like to be doing anything other than having this conversation.





	Under the Table

**Author's Note:**

> At some point, I'm going to write more with Gabriel, though not before I make more progress on WIPs, probably. But having never really done anything with him before, I figured I should at least dip my toe in with something short and silly, so that when I do try to write anything more serious, I won't feel like I've never tackled him at all before.

    The door swings open, and even before Gabriel announces himself, Aziraphale can sense the presence of another angel.

 

    It used to be a comfort to him, once… once upon a time. It used to be comforting to know there were other angels about, that he wasn’t the only one. That should things really go badly, there was a cherub just there he could hide behind-- well, not _hide behind_ , but turn to! He’d been… timider, once, but he doesn’t think he would have _hidden behind_ , only that he would have been glad of having someone powerful next to him, just… just in case.

 

    That was before… That was before quite a lot.

 

    That was before he’d met a demon, in fact, and then when he _did_ , the demon turned out to be Crowley, and Crowley was never something to be frightened of.

 

    There was even a time when he barely even noticed the other angels closing up shop, ones who’d been stationed near him, who he’d not got on with particularly but who he’d found it soothing to be… to be not far from. They’d gone, and he’d been so wrapped up in a three day debate he and Crowley had been engaged in he’d not noticed.

 

    But it was always good not to be alone in a sense. It was always good to feel there were others like him around. He knew, even then, that he wasn’t _very_ like them-- they chalked it up to his being on Earth so long, but even before there’d _been_ an Earth, he’d not fit in.

 

    He’s not sure exactly when it started to be more stressful than comforting, to sense other angels around him. Too long ago for comfort. Longer ago than he and Crowley had been close enough to justify it by that. Just… a creeping sense that they weren’t necessarily there for his aid and comfort, that perhaps they were there because they didn’t trust him. Not in the sense that they suspected him of wrong, so much as that they questioned his ability to succeed on his own.

 

    Well… not his ability to succeed, not always, but to remain… angelic, to not grow too earthly without regular contact, he resented that. The feeling that they saw him as… if not tainted, taint-able.

 

    Well…

 

    But he’d thought they’d have _time_ now! He’d thought they would be _safe_! Maybe not forever, but for a little while… Everything Crowley had relayed to him, he’d thought…

 

    And Crowley is _out_ , if something happens to him, how will Crowley know? Will he be in danger, across town? Does he need him?

 

    But it’s too late to flee, there’s nowhere to go. He could go up to the roof and take off flying, he’d still be caught, and suppose he was surrounded? Suppose…

 

    “Aziraphale.” Gabriel greets, and it’s… not the tone he’d expected. It’s not his old self, and it’s not… it’s not the Gabriel he’d have expected to face now, not angry, or cold, or…

 

    It’s very backwards, it’s… not ‘deferential’, precisely, but it’s polite. Not in that buddy-buddy way that grated, but… _polite_ , in the way Aziraphale might ask to be addressed by a coworker. And perhaps a bit nervous of him.

 

    “Gabriel. This is a surprise.” He keeps the counter between them just the same, leans back from him a little, waits for what’s coming. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon. After our… falling out.”

 

    Falling out… that even with everything, he hasn’t _Fallen_ is something. Though of course, Hell wouldn’t want him, after… Still, for a while, he’d expected it, until he could finally feel secure in the thought that everyone wanted to pretend this wasn’t happening…

 

    “Yes. No. Well. You and I need to have a little chat.” He drums his hands on the counter.

 

    “About?”

 

    “... Demons. We’ve been cleaning up a lot of messes and that means working with Hell a little more closely than usual.”

 

    “Yes, I’m very aware of the sort of partnership Heaven and Hell worked out, I was there.” Aziraphale raises an eyebrow. “There was a trade arranged, as I recall. Something about hellfire and holy water.”

 

    “No hard feelings.” Gabriel pastes on a grin that isn’t quite his old grin.

 

    “No. Hard feelings.”

 

    “Great! We’re on the same page! Look, I just need to ask you how you did it.”

 

    “The hellfire?” He blinks.

 

    “No, no. We’re not talking about that. I mean, setting up what I believe the humans might refer to as, a demon booty call.”

 

    He draws himself up to his full unimpressive height-- well, he doesn’t think ‘unimpressive’ is normally the word, but next to Gabriel… For once, though, he doesn’t really think about how much taller Gabriel is, or broader, or more important or powerful or angelic or any of that. He only thinks about the fact that Gabriel has just referred to Crowley as a ‘booty call’, and that he’s interested in replicating his success.

 

    “I beg your pardon!”

 

    “Come on, you can tell me.” A conspiratorial little smirk, a gentle punch to the vicinity of his shoulder that does not _quite_ make contact.

 

    "Is that what you think it is?" He demands, holding back exactly none of the offense he feels.

 

    "Well... yeah. Look, we _know_ you and the demon Crowley have engaged in the sex."

 

    "Crowley's _not_ a 'booty call'!"

 

    "Uhh... fuck buddy?” Gabriel shrugs.

 

    “No! He’s-- He was-- How do you _know_ what we’ve done?”

 

    “Well, now, again, I’m not here to talk about… _that_ , but there is the issue of your six thousand years of apparent treachery. I mean, you _asked_. We know about you because you’ve been seen with the demon. Like, a lot.” He snorts, spreading his hands in a ‘what can you do’ gesture. “Basically from the beginning.”

 

    “His _name_ is Crowley.”

 

    “Sure, sure. What I want to know is, can you help me? Maybe in exchange for some… _clemency_ , moving forward with… things. It would save everybody a lot of trouble if we could work out a little under-the-table deal and I could tell everyone you had been, well, dealt with. We don’t need to find a thing that will destroy you. We can just... let things go. Sign some paperwork about never doing it again, put you on a sort of… house arrest. Here on Earth.”

 

    "You want my help... talking to a girl?" He feels a little sick at the thought that Gabriel might actually also mean Crowley, rather than some lady demon, but he can’t possibly. Can he? Gabriel is hard to peg down, he doesn’t have a human sense of sexuality, but an angelic one, and Aziraphale has never really navigated that whole… sphere of socialization. He’s much more comfortable with the Earthly version.

 

    "Oh, Beelzebub is not a 'girl', she's a lord of Hell. But yes. You're the only angel I know who's successfully fucked a demon. I mean I presume you were successful. Otherwise why would the two of you keep meeting up?"

 

    This is giving Aziraphale a headache he does not need, and so he sets aside the issue of his relative success with Crowley, to focus on Gabriel’s problem. Not in the sense of the problem he wants Aziraphale to solve, and more in the sense that he clearly has some kind of _problem_.

 

    “ _Beelzebub_?”

 

    “Yeah. I just… I keep thinking about her. I feel like we have a lot in common. We’re both upper management, we have our duty, we take it seriously… we both tried to kill you and your boyfriend, and _that’s_ been a whole mess, and that’s why we’re still kind of talking. Obviously nothing serious, you know. Heaven, Hell. There’s nothing I can do about that. We all chose our sides. But that’s no reason why two like-minded professionals can’t get it together and figure out what corporeal sex is like.”

 

    “Crowley and I were _friends_ , if you must know.”

 

    “Oh. Well that is disappointing. It would be a _tremendous_ betrayal of everything I hold dear to just… make ‘friends’ with a demon.” He snorts. “The booty call is really only situationally acceptable and even then there are some fine lines to tread around.”

 

    “I see. It’s all right for you, but not for me.”

 

    “Exactly! Beelzebub and I are forced to work together. Meaningless sex is currently something Heaven has no policies against. We’re not seeking each other out-- or lying about it.”

 

    Aziraphale frowns. “Crowley and I don’t engage in meaningless sex.”

 

    “Well, you should. That wouldn’t be a problem.”

 

    “Why don’t you ask her if she wants to… engage in corporeal relations with you?”

 

    “... Just ask her?”

 

    “Yes.”  


    Gabriel takes out a notepad that had not been in his pocket prior. He makes a note. “Okay, well, I can give that a shot, but I do have to say, if you aren’t fucking your demon buddy, your advice is a lot less valuable.”

 

    Aziraphale swallows, glancing down. “I didn’t say we hadn’t.”

 

    “You kind of did.”

 

    “It isn’t meaningless.” He clarifies, meeting Gabriel’s eyes. “Nothing about what I have with him is meaningless. We _were_ friends. If it wasn’t for everything you all put the two of us through we might not have become more. And I do not accept any clemency if it isn’t extended to us both-- not that we need it, as I think we’ve proven.”

 

    Gabriel makes another note, his expression clearly communicating that he thinks Aziraphale is the one being weird about this. He mouths the word ‘touchy’, then pockets his notepad, which vanishes.

 

    “Well. That settles the betting pool.”

 

    “A betting pool doesn’t sound very _divine_.” Aziraphale pouts.

 

    “The odds were on booty call.” Gabriel says, as if he’d expressed a friendly interest in said pool. “Although of course there’s a lot riding on you loving him, but him not loving you.”

 

    “Well he does.”

 

    Gabriel shrugs, starting back towards the door.

 

    “He _does_!” Aziraphale snaps.

 

    “I’ll keep you updated. Good talk, buddy!”

 

    And then he’s gone.

 

    Which is a relief, but the whole thing had been very frustrating, and he doesn’t know what to do with Gabriel’s odd tendency to lapse back into some sort of friendliness-- are they really trying so absolutely to ignore what had happened? He’s not sure what to feel about any of it just yet. Aziraphale flips his sign to closed, locks the door, and repairs to his back room, to lie down on Crowley’s couch-- it had always been Crowley’s couch-- and close his eyes. This is something he expects they’ll have to talk about. Clemency… if it’s on the table, he has to talk to Crowley. But the last thing he wants to discuss is… well, any of this.


End file.
